Near the press entrance, there are two elevators at Turner Field. The first is for fans who are too old or fat for stairs. The second is called the “press express,” a two stop shuttle from the press box to the field. On Tuesday night I spent nearly 4 hours bouncing back and forth, meeting both shifts of elevator attendants, while my temper sbobet rose like the counterweight on every passing floor.
The lower level, down in the industrial core of the stadium, looks like the boiler room of every large building you’ve ever seen, except there are security guards every 15 feet. It’s odd to walk past doors marked “Visitors bullpen” and “Braves Clubhouse” after decades of staring down at them from nosebleed seats. The corridor to the field itself is along the first base line, and we were allowed to cruise on out, as long as we stuck to the warning track.
The best part of the press box, is the lounge outside. There are hot dogs, chips, pizza and cokes served gratis for the writers. My photographer had 3 dogs, I had four, with chili. John Miller, the ESPN announcer was there, wearing too tight navy shorts and a hawaiian print shirt, shoving some sort of yellow pasta into his mouth. Skip Caray was there too, seated with 4 friends in the media lounge and clearly not enjoying his sandwich.
Neat-O!
We’d gone, Mark and I, for a story about the man throwing the ceremonial first pitch, but the subject balked. We waited for him to meet us at the pre-determined spot from 3:15 until just one hour before the 7:35 start. We spent that last bit on the field. Our guy never showed up. The opening lob came from some woman, on behalf of the Georgia lottery. The story was a failure and I was not amused.
Luckily Mark is a hardcore Braves fan so HIS mood never changed. He was just happy to say he’d been THIS close to Wilson Betemint. In fact, between bites of mustard soaked meat, he was even more excited about seeing sbobet Skip Carey.
While we stood at the press entrance, Mark saw Skip sneak through the police door, “There’s Skip!” He actually giggled.
It was the same in the canteen. Mark was excited and Skip was nonplussed. It’s odd to see two people in roughly the same line of work, in exactly the same situation, have such different reactions.
